1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for accommodating and compensating angular deflections of pipe conduits and including two rigid cylindrical sleeves interconnected by a spring bellows.
The pressure in pipe conduits generated by the medium flowing therethrough generates reactive forces which must be accommodated at the locations where the individual rigid pipe conduit sections are joined to each other.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to accommodate and compensate for angular deflections in pipe conduits which may be generated, for instance, by the changes of the temperature and/or pressure of the medium flowing therethrough compensating means are made use of. Known compensators having a hinge joint structure are commonly provided with joint plates which are designed such that the plates are hingedly connected to each other by the agency of a plug such that the joint is basically a sleeve bearing structure. The high pressures prevailing in the pipe conduits lead to the generation of an extremely high surface pressure at the gliding surface present between the plug and the plug bearing. Because in the practical applications no lubrication is provided for such sleeve bearings, there exists the danger that already after a small number of compensating movements a cold welding appears between the plug bearings and the plugs or pivot bearings and pivots, respectively. If now after suffering such cold welding further angular movements are executed, such cold welding condition will lead to extremely strong increase of the forces generated by the angular movements. These extremely high forces lead in turn to an additional strain of the pipe conduit itself. Such additional strains can be taken into consideration when designing pipelines only very approximatively because only little is known with regard to the time at which such cold welding will appear and also with regard to the extent of such cold welding and, accordingly, with regard to the increase of the forces and stresses generated by above condition. At any rate, a high surface pressure between pivot and pivot bearing leads to an exceedingly high wear of these members which in turn detrimentally influences the operational ability and specifically the safety of the complete conduit.